


my absence has been weaponized

by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)



Series: dimension 20 [45]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Gen, Ghosts, Graphic Description, Haunting, Vengeful ghosts, ceresian fascism, how do i tag for fictional food hell being real? it is and i describe it, lots of descriptions of blood, the fact that jet is a kid is brought up a lot in the context of her being dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25100416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife
Summary: Jet Rocks is dead. Jet Rocks isangry. Jet Rocks is going to show a false king and an arrogant fascist the fruits of what they’ve wrought.(Or: Jet Rocks is a spiteful ghost.)
Relationships: Calroy Cruller & Jet Rocks, Jet Rocks & Augustus Ciabatta
Series: dimension 20 [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706107
Comments: 13
Kudos: 63





	my absence has been weaponized

**Author's Note:**

> once again thank you to abbi for enabling me  
> they might be giants' "i'll be haunting you" is the title source and theme song for this  
> general tw for characters being haunted and being driven to exhaustion/general not-quite suicidal ideation/sort of but not quite madness. basically: this one's uhhhh Fuckin Rough

_The work isn’t over, soldier_.

Calroy Cruller sits on a cold throne and sees a reflection loom in his guards’ armor. He whirls, blade out, and there is no one there. His guards do not stare and he feels their eyes anyway. He tries to bask in his royalty and instead cannot stop seeing a long braid in the corner of his eye as he walks through echoing halls.

Augustus Ciabatta stands in the center of the Senate hall, and names himself Imperator. There is no one else with the will or the might he can claim, and he crushes his challengers easily. The last bearers of democracy cower, he feels a chill. He sweeps his gaze across the crowd, and does a double take. A black braid, a drawn blade, a pink circlet. There, and gone. He blinks away the phantom, and returns his gaze upon his victory. And yet- the chill remains.

Calroy stands at the head of a war table, and Belizabeth’s envoy nods sagely at his suggestion. The gathering begins to disperse, and he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns, and sees nothing. He feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns again, quicker, more frantic. There is no one, and the press of a blade to the back of his neck. The Bulbian envoy is asking if he’s feeling well. There are no drawn blades but his own. 

Augustus Ciabatta walks through the plaza at the head of a battalion. The outer villages must be brought to order, after all, lest rebellion fester. Augustus did not gain his position by refusing to do the work he orders his men to do. When a girl steps in front of them, standing in defiance, holding her spear like an amateur, he smiles. When she shouts about democracy, about despots, he laughs. 

He raises his sword to cut her down, and in the second before her severed head hits the ground, he sees the face of a Candian heir, and she is screaming at him. The blood on his blade is golden and not blue, and yet it smells of sugar all the same.

Calroy stands in front of a mirror in the king’s quarters. He stares at his reflection, and it stares back. There are bags under his eyes and his hands shake. He grabs them and they don’t stop, holds tighter and they don’t stop, don’t stop, _don’t stop_ until he slams them down on the sink. He hangs his head before he looks back up at the mirror. Jet Rocks’ bloody face and child’s eyes stare back at him, and he screams. Slams his fist into the mirror. 

His shattered reflection stares wildly back.

Augustus sits on a cushion in a command tent, blade on his lap. He does not look to the corner of his eyes where the phantom lurks, does not look at the flat of his blade where his reflection is waiting to be stolen from him. He runs a stone methodically down the sword, and sets his jaw. He is a strong man, the guiding hand this country needs. He will not-

Hands wrap around his neck. Candied breath against his ear. She screams in whispers and he _cannot understand_ , and he tries in vain to pry her hands from his neck. 

He bellows at the aide that enters his tent and who stares at his wide-eyed heaving. He is not weak. He is _not_. A phantom will hold no sway over him!

Calroy stands in front of his assembled allies. Their final confrontation is coming. It will not be the end of this conflict, but it will decide many things. It will be the end, the _end_ of the Rocks line once and for all. 

He says this and his voice betrays his exhaustion. The pointed shoes trailing bloodied footprints have followed him from his dreams into the waking world, or maybe this is a nightmare with no end. He stares at them, cannot bring himself to look higher, and a council member clears their throat.

He jerks. Turns his head to assure them of the upcoming victory and sees the furious face of a rotting princess, she reaches for his throat with bloodied hands, and he stumbles away. Everyday she gets closer and everyday he feels her ghostly blade along his spine and he wonders how long until she reaches through the mirror for his blood. The council members stare and their whispers are not quiet.

When the castle walls are breached and his troops slaughtered and Calroy Cruller lounges on a cold throne, when the unfallen King brings his sword to his throat and the furious Queen locks his limbs to the ground with caramel magic, Calroy will laugh, and will not say anything because caramel blocks his throat, and he will look up to lock eyes with his killer, savior, enemy, king. 

He will not see the eyes of the Unfallen, but the eyes of a child wide with innocence and rage. The hand that looms above him will not carry the heavy weight of Payment Day but the blood-slicked blade of Flickerish, and when the life is snuffed from the traitor king Calroy, he will be greeted on the other side by the Fallen Heir, by the bloodied shadow that stalks him. 

The Hungry One’s jaw will gape and he will be dragged into it by a Jet Rocks who screams for vengeance and repayment for the grief wrought upon her family, and Calroy will scream louder still, caught between eternal rows of teeth.

When the Ceresian lines are broken and the warcamps set ablaze and the Imperator brought low again, Augustus Ciabatta will kneel on a barren battlefield littered with bodies, body more oozing wounds than braided dough.

A peppermint bolt will pierce his throat at the same time a sour-tipped arrow will break the back of his skull, and he will not thank the Bulb but he will be at peace with this end, as at peace as he can be, until a cold hand grips his collar and saccharine whispers deafen him and the hands that grip him are small and blue and dripping with sweet blood and the eyes that burn into him are purple and blazing with rage, and Augustus Ciabatta will not believe in the Hungry One until he is pushed kicking and screaming into its choking throat.

**Author's Note:**

> in the words of director jonathan frakes, that calroy slamming his fist into the mirror scene is an _homage_ to azula  
> let me know if there's anything else i should tag


End file.
